I am glad I checked back here. I just wanted you to know that I noticed your excellent post on the war on thinking.

Your comment on the teacher who was fired didn't surprise me at all. My daughter went to an elementary school in a community with a big Ag college and a large dairy farm just outside of town. The promotions children were subjected to at school on behalf of the Ag industry amazed me. Every week in her backpack she seemed to bring home another brochure designed to brainwash her or sell me on the current agricultural promotion. Teachers actually used some of this material to teach from.

One of my pet peeves is the commercialization of American education.

Elaine was attacked on all fronts for espousing her animal rights views in a feminist forum. In fact, oddly, many people said "this is not the place for this discussion" and proceeded to attack her arguments. (One wonders - if it is not the place then why continue the discussion?) In Salon.com the blog owner is represented as a hapless victim of Elaine's strident animal rights attacks. And again, one wonders - if she didn't want that in there why not just delete it? It's her blog.

Many of the attackers attacked how Elaine presented her views rather than the views themselves. "I might listen to you if you said it nicely", is the jist of those comments.

It's a variation of the ad hominen fallacy. Attack the messenger. Obviously, it's easier to do that because you don't have to do any research or actual thinking yourself. Just respond to the tone of the post.

The same thing is happening with the leadership of the Democratic party. Over and over I hear fellow Dems groan and say "They aren't presenting it right". Much as I love Lakoff and the concept of framing, and much as I agree that to win an election these days you have to frame things right, I believe it's a sad, sorry state of affairs. It means the public is a vast uneducated blob that must be fed baby food. It isn't ready for the solid stuff. We aren't ready to think for ourselves, much less do the work, actually study the subjects and consider the arguments critically.

Democracy ultimately will not succeed if the electorate is ignorant. I hate that this is what we have become, and that we want entertaining ways to be taught, we don't want to do the work. We are all responsible for our own knowledge or lack of knowledge. If we can't get the facts we must demand them, loudly. Interestingly, we usually can get them if we take the time to look.

Another of Elaine's posts is on the firing of a teacher, because he had the audacity to challenge school materials that promoted milk. This incident points out the failings of our school systems in teaching critical thinking. A public whose members cannot think critically is going down. The writing, damn it, is on the wall.

Does your American Indian relative like a spicy curry dish, har har?

Anyway, he sounds like a good man, and anyone who treats animals well has my respect. I have been in the homeless animal rescue business for a long time, and I have witnessed enough human cruelty and indifference to animal suffering to last me several lifetimes. I wish everyone was like your relative.

Still, I have to disagree with you on this. I have seen so many good dogs and cats, puppies and kittens, languishing in shelter cages that it breaks my heart. I've seen the tears of the shelter workers who have to euthanize puppies and kittens. I've shared the anguish of people desperately trying to find homes for animals. Having seen all this, I cannot support the intentional breeding of yet more dogs and cats and other animals. I'd like to think that if everyone has seen what I've seen, they'd agree and nobody would intentionally breed an animal until every last shelter cage was empty.

To those of you who buy purebred because you doubt the quality of animals in shelters, you are dead wrong. I've seen purebreds of all kinds in shelters, and I've seen mutts, and in almost every case you are looking at a wonderful animal who would make a loving pet. If you have the room in your home and the space in your heart, please consider saving a life by adopting an animal from your local shelter. You won't be disappointed.

That's one of the bad things about typing a letter in at 3AM when you can't sleep. You type like you think or like you'd do if you were sending an e-mail where folks know you.

My relation is American Indian. He lives in Mississippi. My mistake.

And his little Yorkie ranch (as the family likes to call it) gets him called "backyard breeder" and "puppy mill" quite frequently.

After all, he sells exclusively to pet stores, he has a LOT of animals out in an old barn, he doesn't breed to show dogs, he doesn't really even breed to improve the breed. His dogs are there for breeding, after all; once they've had enough puppies, he gets rid of them. (Okay, there are 2 that he's had to keep, they're his kids' pets.) He does most of his own shots and medicine, his own grooming etc.

He gets called nasty names constantly by people who've never been to his farm, never met his dogs. He has several online friends who are in the same business he is, and they pretty much treat their dogs the same way he does. And they're ALL called "puppy mill" owners and "backyard breeders" with a sneer by people.

Look, my dog is a show dog. She has impeccable breeding, perfect papers, has the CH. in front of her name, and had a couple of litters to make her breeder happy. I would NEVER put my dog through the show circuit again, and I bitterly regret doing it the first time. The people in the circuit treat their dogs much, much worse than my relation, but no one says ANYTHING about it. No, they go after people like my relation.

Luckily, he doesn't give a rat's ass. Just keeps churning out little puppies.